(Bari) The United States balked Thursday at Italian attempts to attenuate a G7 declaration supporting the right to abortion, on the first day of the summit of heads of state and government in Puglia.
The objections of far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose country chairs the G7 this year, have particularly irritated her partners, according to diplomatic sources. In addition to Italy, the G7 includes the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan.
President Joe Biden “was really keen that we at least have the words referring to what we had in Hiroshima on women’s health and reproductive rights” during the 2023 G7 under Japanese presidency, underlined a senior American official on condition of anonymity.
“The (final G7) communiqué will reaffirm the commitment made in Hiroshima,” scathed the official, in reference to the support expressed in Japan for “safe and legal” voluntary terminations of pregnancies (abortions).
The services of Ms. Meloni, known for her ultraconservative positions in favor of the traditional family, denied any censorship on Wednesday, saying that negotiations were still ongoing.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday that it was “premature” to comment on the information while “the various delegations are negotiating.”
Last year, in their final communiqué following their summit in Japan, the leaders expressed “great concern” about the decline in women’s rights.
They also committed to “access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care.” A source close to the negotiations told AFP that since 2021, “there has been a mention of ‘safe access’,” but that “Meloni doesn’t want it.”
“She is isolated on this subject. But since it is the host country, the others decided not to make it a casus belli,” according to this source. “So it will not come back in the text” of the final press release, the publication of which is not scheduled before Friday evening. It seems that the Americans did not want to stop there.
“There were debates on, in particular, questions of sexual and reproductive health or questions of vaccines which could not be taken into account as much as we would have liked by the Italian presidency,” for his part clarified An official from the French presidency spoke to the press on Wednesday.
France, which introduced the right to abortion in its Constitution, and Canada, were particularly upset, according to the Italian daily Domani.
Abortion is also a hot topic in the United States, where President Joe Biden has denounced restrictions on this fundamental right imposed in the most conservative states.
A source from the Italian Presidency of the Council denied that the reference to “safe access” had already been removed. “No state has asked to remove the reference to abortion-related issues from the draft conclusions of the G7 Summit […] at a stage when negotiations are still ongoing,” she assured and “whatever will be included in the final document” will be the result of the negotiations.
Coming to power in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni, who likes to present herself as a “Christian mother”, is accused by women’s rights defenders of trying to hinder access to abortion in Italy, a country where the Catholic Church retains significant weight.
Although abortion has been authorized since 1978, access is severely limited by the very high percentage of gynecologists who invoke conscientious objection to refuse to perform them.
In April, the Italian parliament, dominated by the right and the far right, voted in favor of a measure promoted by the Meloni government allowing anti-abortion activists to be present in clinics where women seeking abortions go, provoking indignation from opposition parties.
Francesco Lollobrigida, Minister of Agriculture and brother-in-law of Ms. Meloni, questioned the “opportunity” for the G7 to support abortion in his press release while Pope Francis, a fierce opponent of abortion, is invited to the summit on Friday.
Elly Schlein, head of the Democratic Party (PD, center left, main opposition party), on the contrary accused Ms. Meloni of undermining Italy’s position on the international scene by calling into question a “fundamental right”.
